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One of the problems with simply resisting is that it seems passive. That there’s nothing else there. The Democrats need to take another play book from the Republicans now that they have some momentum on Healthcare reform. We all know that the ACA (aka Obamacare) is an imperfect law, as any law is, so there’s plenty of room for improvement there. Why not take advantage of that, but do so using their own requirements against.

One of the main arguments against ACA is that it’s expensive. According to Bernie Sander’s pushing Medicare to all would save individuals somewhere between just under $4,000 and just over $5,500 per year. That’s a lot of money for most people, in some cases over 10% of their income. One study is putting the savings for the overall economy at an absurd half TRILLION dollar saving. In one year. Let’s say that we’re less optimistic and say it’s 20% of that, so a cool $100 billion dollars. That’s 1/7 the amount of TARP, which was used to bailout the banks. When we injected $700 billion into the economy it saved it from the worst banking crisis we’d seen since the ’30s, injecting that much extra money into the economy at the individual level would have a huge multiplicative impact on the economy, much more than just pushing that money into a single location.

So my proposal, which is more modest than Medicare for all, would be to propose Medicare to everyone that makes less than < $30,000 year or maybe 20% above the minimum living wage in a city/region. Regardless, this would help the people that are protesting most loudly, the rural red states. The rest of Obamacare could stay the same, it would just really help the bottom of the population. We could even extend it to small business owners so their employees get a perk of Medicare and all those benefits without that employer needing to worry about their employee’s healthcare. The other benefit is that companies like Hobby Lobby wouldn’t be able politicize healthcare and would allow individuals to make decisions about things like birth control for themselves.

Immigration

ICE has been brutally cracking down on immigration the past few days. Democrats should introduce a comprehensive immigration reform that protects the country and aliens. I think that this is something that red states and red parts of blue states are going to be filling the pinch on. Apparently, farmers that supported Trump in California are now worried about losing most of their work force. This is a pretty valid concern. In Austin Texas, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted raids of illegal aliens by targeting their children. There are reports of their cars following school buses waiting for children to get off the bus to ask the parents for immigration paperwork.

While Arizona was enforcing their paper’s pleas law the state lost between $300 million – $1 billion in agricultural output, while losing out in another $147 million in cancelled conferences in the state. Arizona isn’t known as a agricultural powerhouse, if something similar happens in California, the entire country is going to feel the impact with massively increased food prices. Arizona’s Ag output is about $7.3 billion while California’s is estimated closer to $50 billion, if we lose 1/7 of California’s ag output that’s losing as much as all of Arizona (Az lost about 1/7 of theirs due to papers please). That’s a huge hit to that economy, ripple that out across the entire country and we’re potentially looking at a recession with food prices skyrocketing. Furthermore, many of these illegal aliens are actually paying taxes, of the estimated 11 million about 6.1 million pay taxes which equates to billions in federal and state revenue.

Democrats should instead offer reform that allows non violent illegal aliens a path towards citizenship or some sort of migratory work visa that is designed and so that the workers that want to use that program can go home when they are finished with the year’s work. This should guarantee access to the US for a number of years in such a way that people feel they are safe to go back and forth across the boarder. Partner with Mexico to vet the candidates for these types of visas to ensure that they were upstanding citizens in Mexico and that there are no gang connections. Furthermore, work to protect these migrants so that there’s no need for them to ever mule drugs across the boarders. Require that these workers get car insurance, licenses, and health insurance while they are here (or at least pay taxes for them to cover their portion of Medicare if the above passes). As for those that are already here, stay the course with Obama’s practices, which were more aggressive than past administrations, but still more human than what Trump is doing. Provide a path for citizenship for those that are here. Even toss in a requirement to learn English if you want to mollify the far right.

That still leaves the question of refugees and the Muslim ban. First, I think we need to make sure that the people we train here with PhD’s should be enabled to stay easily. This shouldn’t even be a question, we should in fact require it for any one that is trained in the US or require them to pay back the entire cost of their education immediately. This is what the Netherlands does – or at least Eindhoven University of Technology does. Additionally, if we’re concerned about too many foreigners taking these positions we need to incentivize American students to pursue higher levels of education so there are few spots for immigrants. I personally think that for the best result science and business needs diversity, so I’m for getting more people more degrees.

Beyond this though, I don’t really know what remedies to offer, someone with greater immigration reform experience should weigh in here, but generally, we need to accept refugees for crises we created.

Reigning in the Cloak and Dagger

It’s time we ended cover operations like the one in Yemen. They create resentment towards the US and since they are covert we don’t know what’s being done in our name. We need to end drone strikes and use diplomatic channels to address these concerns. Democrats should introduce bills that require increased oversight of these operations and reduce the executive power to conduct military operations without Congressional approval and/or a formal declaration of war. It is very unlikely that this will pass at all, but there are a lot of people on both sides of the aisle that believe there needs to be more constraints on what the President is able to do without approval or oversight. We have now been conducting these raids for 15 years and there has been no increased safety in the US due to them.

The other area where the same operatives are heavily engaged is mass surveillance in the US. Democrats need to introduce a bill that stops. Simple as that. It’s been shown not to work as with any large data set it’s possible to create find correlations that really don’t exist. It’s possible create sinister reasons for why a person is doing completely innocuous things.

I think if Democrats repeatedly introduce bills to attack these areas, they will get more and more support as the Trump administration continues to crack down. These sorts of initiatives will show they have a backbone and that they really are actually striving to make things better. Without at least these three changes, there’s no way that Democrats can mount a serious “resistance” to Trump. We’ve seen how loud and upset people are with Obamacare, the next step is to figure out how to do the same with the other two.

Today, I’ve been seeing a lot of people saying that Bernie supports need to just give up the “Bernie would have won” attitude. I find this exceedingly problematic. First, it’s an opinion and like assholes everyone has one. Second, there is some evidence, based on the polling that Bernie would have crushed Trump. Third, there’s anecdotal evidence of people switching from Bernie to Trump or just stayed home from voting. Finally, this implicitly means that these folks need to just shut up and get back in line with everyone else.

This last point simply pisses me off. I’ve always had something of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to authority or the status quo. I get really pissed off when people talk about how these giant cities are god’s gift to man, when the smaller cities i’ve lived in are amazing places in their own right. Places that have a lot of character and the difference of perspective is important. I wrote about this irritation in my article right after the election.

The Democratic party needs this discussion, this in fighting. There can and should be general alignment over general resistance to Trump. The policies that are proposed to counter their proposals can and should have serious discussion about what the future should be. The reason why people bring up the primary and that Bernie would have won, is that they support his policy positions and believes that these positions should be the dominant theme when challenging the Republican run Government. The idea being that Clinton’s ideas are a continuation of the status quo, the status quo that lost and lost badly in the electoral college – which is the only vote that matters right now.

Bernie and Clinton represent two different potential futures for the Democratic party, we need to look at it that way. I believe under the Bush years, the Democratic party essentially was the Party of Clinton, which really was a centrist party that was easily pulled to the right. During the Obama administration this held true as well, where the Democrats tried to pull the country a little left, but stayed towards the center in hopes of getting something through. Which resulted in a great deal of center right policies simply through obstructionism.

Now, if the Democratic party wants to learn from the Republican party, rather than working to meet with them half way, which will ultimately pull them to the right, again. They need to start with a stated position which is significantly farther left than what they might be when they are in power. This would mean that when the policy finally gets approved, that it’ll be much more centrist. Furthermore, most of those policies would help the people that need it the most, that ended up voting for Trump, because they believed he would help him.

The fight over Bernie v. Clinton is a battle over the heart and soul of the Democratic party. If you aren’t willing to talk with the people that are saying that Bernie and thus his ideals could have beaten Trump, then you aren’t willing to listen at all and should not be in a position of power in the Democratic party. The party needs to be inclusive of radically different views, take advantage of that diversity and use it as a way to drive change in Washington to help everyone.

The government shut down is bad mmmkay? This is one of the examples as to why I’m glad my wife didn’t end up with a job at either a government research lab, government agency, university or any other place that relies on public funds to keep it’s doors open. That’s a lot of places. Between the sequestration and this shutdown, the US has turned into a horrible place for the sciences. However, it’s alright for us to keep the NSA up and running, but not the people that watch the watchmen. Basically, our government has different priories than most Americans, which of course is no surprise – well at least different from myself. Losing funding for science is a huge blow, especially the fact that they couldn’t continue to speak or publish any papers. It’s disconcerting because our scientific research is what allows the US to stay ahead of the rest of the world in our economic output. The results of scientific funding from the ’60s essentially gave rise to everything we’re doing on the internet. The funding from ARPA that lead to ARPAnet and then the internet, inadvertently lead to the great work I mentioned in my review of Dealers of Lightning. Many of the members of the team at Xerox were funded by ARPA during their PhD’s, their research at various universities, and in some cases even startups. This one government expenditure had massive positive impact in the one area of our economy that’s going gang busters.

So what’s going on with this shutdown? As this article points out the House did pass a budget, which is where all budget must start, however, the Senate didn’t pass it and countered with their own budget, which happens fairly often. This leads to negotiation between the two chambers in Congress. The problem that we’re experiencing in this case is that the “don’t match” portion happens to be Obamacare. The House did not fund Obamacare at all, while the Senate naturally did (being held by the Democrats). This required that the House and Senate come together to reconcile their differences, which aren’t possible to reconcile with everyone. Which is the Speaker’s problem right now. Almost a week ago, there were rumored to be enough votes in the House to pass the Senate version of the budget – as Republicans were defecting to support the Democrats. The House refused to allow a vote to be called. Bills that don’t have a chance to pass get votes all the time (many people have pointed out Obamacare repeal is a key example of that). So, I think that the article I linked above is a bit disingenuous either intentionally or is just intellectually dishonest. The author clearly knows what people mean by saying “law of the land.” It means that as we have obligation within the law we need to pay them. The House, Senate, President, and Supreme Court weighed in and it’s a legal bill. The House is unable to repeal it through legislative methods so created a plan to shutdown the government to stop the bill from taking effect – to defund the bill and “repeal” it that way. That’s what they are doing and why.

The reasons for why the Republicans believe this would work is beautifully laid out in an argument using Game Theory on the Harvard Business Review: every other time brinkmanship was used, it worked. Go with the strategy until it doesn’t work any more. The White House figured this out too and now cannot allow it to continue. Otherwise, the above author would be correct, the best way to kill a bill you don’t like that passed through everything is to simply defund it later or shutdown the government until the other people meet your demands. Toss some spin on their to make it seem like the other side is unreasonable and boom, you’ve gotten your way again.

The problem with brinkmanship is that it’s a zero sum game and if the government defaults, it’s going to be terrible for everyone. The bulk of US voters blame the republicans, this could cause massive damage to even safe areas for the republicans. Are there better ways to deal with Obamacare? Yes, if it’s as awful as the Republicans think it is, use that to get everyone out of office that voted for it. Run on that plank and push it to the hilt. If it kills jobs, causes people to go bankrupt use all that to get the Democrats out of office. Then once a majority is secured repeal the law. That’s how government should work. Sure you can work to undermine the law while you’re at it, but if you want to get rid of it, do it with votes so it’s clear the people have spoken. This shut down is bad for everyone. Let’s end it, figure out how to address long term debt, improve the job market, pay for more science, and address the structural problems we have as a nation. If Obamacare is a bad thing, we’ll figure it out really quick and then deal with that fall out. We need leaders now, not children.